Is the iPad Changing the World as we Know It?

By Teachers With Apps · May 5, 2012 · Blog · 1 Comment

Yes, the iPad is changing everything as we know it! Especially in the way students will learn and teachers will teach. It is happening faster than fast. Everywhere, new technology is being introduced in every possible learning environment. Last Thursday night’s EdAppTalk discussion was on this very topic, here are some of the comments:

Jean – “A quote I recently heard at a digital textbook training I was at said, ‘It took 26 years for the colored TV to enter the classroom, the new iPad sold 3,000,000 in just three days.’ Makes a person stop and think.”
Rebecca – “I think that digital textbooks will really change the America as we know it….when publishers such as McGraw Hill put out digital textbooks – which cost significantly less than cutting down a bunch of trees, that will make all the difference in the world…..what do you think?”
Jayne – “True but sad, I will miss my hardcopies and we will be diminishing some other resource! The truth be told the iPad is here to stay.”

The benefits will outweigh, no doubt about it. The revolutionizing of textbooks is just beginning and the learning potential is huge. Students have always struggled with textbooks, as they can be flat and boring. Often the reading level is beyond their capabilities and the sheer dryness does not promote curiosity. I do believe that more interactive features will not just change how we learn but what we learn.

Differentiation has been a buzzword for a over a decade and teachers have struggled with this mindset and few have truly been successful with implementation. Interactivity is huge and we are in the very infant stages of its development. Authentic assessments can be imbedded into the content and I see this as the next component being added to apps and textbooks. The real beauty is that students can proceed in their own time frame and not everyone will be expected to be on page 39 at the same time. In a previous post I wrote, “Just because a child chronologically falls into a specified grade, it does not put all children on the same page. Some children may not even be in the same book.”

Rebecca – “Imagine…..assessments can be included inside the digital textbooks and instant results are sent/e-mailed to the teacher as well as parents!”
Lena – “While the cost of apps can add up, the diversity in teaching abilities is priceless.”

Where are we going and what will the end results be? The
journey is never going to have an end, and soon the iPad will be as fond a memory as was the Apple-11, which dominated classrooms in the 80′s. As Rebecca commented in Ed App Talk, ”Continuing with the topic of not the same America… I don’t see those commercials with Justin Long as the Mac guy with the PC guy advertising Macs! It’s all iPads now! I miss those commercials!”